This Man Just Said Menstrual Pain Is a Myth — and the Internet Isn’t Having It

It never ceases to amaze (and confuse) us how many cis men hold strong opinions about female bodies. Now that our patience with dudes mansplaining periods was all out, male Twitter user @goldenconceptng has claimed that period pain is — ready for this? — a figment of our collective imagination.

The Twitter conversation began with a fairly innocent question: "What is worse than a broken heart?" When one woman chimed in with "Menstrual pain, homelessness, hunger etc.," he replied with, "As a guy, I think menstrual pain is a myth."

Unfortunately, @Idriss_Ide decided another cis man's opinion was needed in this discussion and contributed this grammatically creative message: "Girls make too much excuses for menstruation as if it's some real difficult experience."

Aside from conveying the idea that men know more than women about everything — including our own bodies! — comments like these are just plain wrong. According to recent Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines, 40 percent of women get PMS and 5 to 8 percent have a serious form that may require medical treatment. "PMS can be a serious condition which can dramatically impact on the quality of a woman’s life, affecting her personal and professional life," Shaughn O’Brien, Keele University professor of obstetrics and gynecology and lead author of the guidelines, said in a press release.

But we shouldn't need doctors to tell us this. How about instead, we believe what women say about their own lived experiences? Hopefully, all the women testifying to the annoyance of period cramps on Twitter have taught @goldenconceptng that lesson.